


look at me, look at me, look at me

by PsychicBananaSplit



Series: frame the halves (and call them a whole) [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Foster Family, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Child Neglect, Drug Use, Feral TommyInnit (Video Blogging RFP), Foster Care, Foster Kid TommyInnit, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Marijuana, Mute Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Panic Attacks, Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Protective Wilbur Soot, TommyInnit Has ADHD (Video Blogging RPF), Underage Drug Use, Wilbur Soot Needs a Hug, he smoke da weed, selective mutism, wilbur soot is a stoner
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29384310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsychicBananaSplit/pseuds/PsychicBananaSplit
Summary: Tommy's story is about resilience.
Relationships: Sleepy Bois Inc. - Relationship, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Series: frame the halves (and call them a whole) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2158530
Comments: 14
Kudos: 283





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> just finished reading "problem child" by mental_kitten, go read it if you're into sbi angst and dark, grim fantasy feels with highschool drama  
> no really it's good go read it  
> the beginning is based on it ig  
> love me some good foster kid tommy angst  
> (imma come up with a better summary lolll)

The air is stale in the office. Clean and business-like. It’s a lot different from the rest of the group home - the boys end smells like sweat and mildew, and Tommy’s always had bad allergies. Every time he comes back he sneezes up a storm. He doesn’t visit the girls’ rooms often, but he imagines it probably smells a bit better. Air filters and shit. Like the office.

He slumps himself down in the stiff chair, huffing into the collar of his hoodie. Another parent - dad, single? - is sitting next to him, and he should probably be paying attention to the conversation that’s right in front of him, but he can’t bring himself to care. There are more interesting things to busy his mind with, anyway.

Like.

Why the hell the fucking kids in the back look like they’re gonna either kill him or ignore him completely.

They’re both tall - unreasonably so. His social worker calls him unreasonably tall all the time, but the two in the back look threatening as hell looming over everything. They both look edgy as fuck, too - grunge and emo tryhards. One even has  _ pink hair. _

The office air is cold, stale, stagnant. 

Tommy feels like a nap.

He’s snapped out of his bored stupor by his social worker turning to him and smiling, strained and harsh, not meeting her eyes.  _ This is the last time, and then you’re out.  _ “Why don’t you go get your bags packed, Tommy? I’ll talk with Mr. Watson a bit more and then you’ll be all set, okay?”

He sniffs, sending the emos in the back a final glare, and hopping right out of his seat. She just wants him out of the room for the talk that’s going to come next -  _ he’s a problem child, Mr. Watson, this is his last chance, he’s a lost cause, just give up now.  _ He purposefully shuts the door a bit louder than necessary, just to piss her off. 

The dingy carpet in his room of the home is green, and damp in the places where a leak had sprung from the ceiling. It squishes uncomfortably under his shoes. The feeling makes him cringe. 

_ A couple weeks and I’ll be back here.  _

He first goes through the motions of unearthing the hidden things - a wad of cash in a hole by the one and only window, his medicine (ADD mostly, like all the other foster kids out there) rolled up in the empty battery compartment of a fire alarm. The socks under his mattress were a big thing. He shoves everything in the backpack that’s been with him for the past five years - blue, patched with duct tape and stickers. It has straps on the front to hold his skateboard, who’s also seen better days, and is also covered in stickers. The stuff he can’t fit in the small space is all thrown in a trash bag.

He seems to catch his social worker and the Watson’s at a good time, because they’re all standing outside the office now. The emos look a bit lost or out of place, but Mr. Watson - the obvious adult, nevermind the gaping height difference - is smiling and laughing and actually looks at Tommy. They joke around a bit, and as the family shuffle themselves out the door, his social worker grabs him by the arm and pulls him closer.

“Behave, kid,” she hisses. “This very well may be your last chance.”

Tommy rolls his eyes and jerks his arm out of her grip.

_ She says it like he doesn’t know.  _

He’s not fucking stupid.

Mr. Watson - Phil, now that Tommy isn’t in the home anymore and doesn’t need to abide to the formality rules of meeting-the-parents - offers to keep his stuff in the back of their van, but they own a fucking  _ van,  _ and Tommy won’t let go of his stuff. Not if his life depends on it. Phil doesn’t seem to mind.

“Techno can sit in the front-”

_ “What,  _ no, I’m sitting in front, Phil?”

Tommy pauses, looking between Phil and the emo he’s deadpan staring at - more grunge-poser, messy dark hair shaken over his face and wearing layers of black and gray. He wears a beanie and a chain is clipped to the belt loops of his jeans, and he inwardly cringes at the look Phil’s giving the kid, but he doesn’t seem to bat an eye.

“I’m not debating with you on this, Wil.”

Wil scoffs. “You know I’d win.”

The staring contest continues for a painstaking moment. Phil sighs. “Fine. Tommy get’s the front seat, if he wants.”

_ “What?” _

“Tommy,” Phil says, ignoring Wil and the outrageous look he shoots at Techno, pinkie, the only one who hasn’t said anything. “Would you like the front seat on the way home?”

...Maybe he can let his stuff out of reach for a second.

“...Sure. Can I keep my backpack up there with me?”

Phil grins. “Of course.”

_ “What?!” _

Tommy has a small, a  _ tiny little inkling,  _ just a tad, that Wilbur may not like him or his existence. Just maybe. It’s not  _ his  _ fault that Phil’s a nice person with common sense and lets the big man up front. It’s not like Wilbur’s in charge. It’s not like there was any name carved on the seat anyway.

They roll up to a small house in a small neighborhood, painted an extravagant color of forest green in a sea of neutral whites, baby-blues and grays. Wilbur leaps out of the car and slams the door as if it burnt him, and Phil sighs again. “Don’t pay attention to him,” he says. “Wil, he always acts like this when someone new comes along. The attitude will probably wear off in a week or two and he’ll start leaving you alone.”

_ He says it like he’s gonna be there for long. _

Techno strays behind and, instead of going in through the front door, turns to the gate to the backyard.Tommy quirks an eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything. He shouldn’t get meddled in stuff he’s not supposed to.

_ That’s his job,  _ he thinks, laughing to himself. He slings the backpack on to his shoulder and grabs the trash bag from the back seats. 

It’s not like he cares about Wilbur’s bitching, he’s been in enough foster homes to know why biological kids get pissed when a stranger suddenly starts living in their house, and when to not cross the line. He crosses it anyway, though. It gets him out faster.

Phil didn’t even lock the door before leaving the house, Tommy doesn’t remember Wilbur taking a key with him. He doesn’t think he’s a superstitious, paranoid person, but unlocked doors make him anxious. 

The house looks a lot nicer than he expected, being lived in by three men. The group home wasn’t known for how clean it was, and the boys house he stayed in before that was too dirty to keep going on as it was. The off-white carpet was too clean, and Tommy felt like him stepping on it with his tattered, ruined shoes was almost against the law, but Phil didn’t say anything about it. 

“Your room is upstairs,” Phil says, walking ahead and leading him up to the second floor. “It isn’t much, and it's a bit plain, but if you want to get anything for decorations, or a new bedspread, we can go to the store tomorrow. Here’s the bathroom - you can put your toothbrush and anything else you need in the empty cup by the sink.” Again, the bathroom, like the rest of the house, is just  _ too clean.  _ It’s the brightest room he’s seen, a dark yellow with black and green accents. 

“This is Wil’s room,” he says, pointing to the only room in the house that seems to have no color at all - just a dark void. The black-out curtains are shut, and it smells like sharp mint and sickly-sweet orange candies and  _ weed.  _ Tommy’s met his own fair share of potheads, but not any that wouldn’t try to  _ hide it.  _

Phil notices the look on his face and grimaces. “Wil says it helps him calm down. As long as he isn’t doing anything else, or too much, I let it slide.”

The shadows in the room shift, and suddenly the devil himself is standing in the way - Wilbur’s so close that Tommy can see the circles under his eyes, and the way his hands shake on the frame of the entrance. “If you’re gonna talk about me, at least do it away from my open door. Thanks.” 

And he shuts it in their face.

Like an  _ asshole.  _

The door seems to glare back at him. Phil sighs, for the third time. “He’ll come around.”

Tommy isn’t so sure.

“This is Tech’s room. He likes it clean - don’t mess with anything in there, he’ll know. Believe me.” He raises an eyebrow at the neatly organized folders and notebooks on the desk, next to a rather expensive computer setup, the made-up bed and the clothes in the closet, like a row of soldiers. 

“And this,” Phil says, gesturing to the last room all the way down the hall, “is all yours. Again, we can go to the store tomorrow if you wanna get anything else. Other than that, I’ll leave you to it. Call if you need anything. The kitchen is downstairs, the bathroom- you know where it is. Uh. Yeah. I’ll leave you to it.”

Tommy ignores how awkward Phil seems to be in favor of throwing his stuff onto the bed - he doesn’t have much, but it is heavy after a while of holding it all at once. The room is, indeed, plain. Beige walls, blue bed, white carpet. There’s a desk by the window with a few of the traditional desk things, a cup of pencils and pens, a lamp, some paper. The closet has some clothes in it, but they’re the generic flannels and hoodies, probably what Phil’s actual kids can’t fit in anymore. 

He immediately feels uncomfortable, and plans an escape. Another foster he met a while back would go on about how it was his nature, he can’t stay in one place for long, kinda bullshit. She wasn’t  _ wrong,  _ but he’s not  _ scared  _ of anything, either. It’s not like he can help but feel out of place in a home that isn’t his.

The knock on the doorframe startles him from thinking, and he finds Wilbur hunched over his door with a newly lit spliff smoking up his new room.

Tommy glares at him. “What the fuck, man? Get outta here with that shit.”

Wilbur cocks an eyebrow at him. “This is my house.”

“Yeah? And I’m staying in the room! I don’t want it smelling like fuckin’  _ skunk  _ in here.”

A beat of silence passes through the conversation, if it could even be called that, but Wilbur scoffs, goes back to his own room and comes back without the joint, which is almost a non-jerk thing to do. “Your social worker filled us in about you.” 

Tommy freezes, but masks the bitterness building up in his throat with crude sneer. “What? She say anything  _ flattering?” _

“No,” he responds, leveling him with a cold stare. “Not really.”

And Tommy… doesn’t have anything to say about that.

“Look- I get that you have issues. We all do. Just don’t make it harder on Phil, yeah? He’s got a lot on his plate as it is, and he doesn’t need another problem case on his hands.”

The quiet was back, intrusive and thick. Tommy fiddles with the straps on his bag. Wilbur stares at him for a few more moments, then nods. “Good talk.”

The pothead slinks out of the doorway, like a fucking slug, the stench of weed lingering, and Tommy wants to chug an entire liter of lemon juice just to stop tasting it in the air.

Great. Good talk.

Tommy doesn’t eat dinner with the rest. He can hear them, laughing and talking downstairs. Phil even invited him, knocking on his closed door and asking if he was hungry, but there isn’t a response, and Phil eventually walks away. He feels a bit bad, Phil hasn’t been anything but nice to him, but he can’t stomach being at the same table with the kids that are already there - pothead and pinkie, who hasn’t said a word since they met.

He still hasn’t unpacked - he unbuckled his skateboard to lean it up against the bed, and emptied his pockets of the trinkets he kept in them onto the desk, but his clothes and little toiletries he owned stayed in his bags. He hasn’t changed out of the outfit he’d worn all day, but it’s his favorite hoodie and his favorite jacket, both over his favorite shirt. He doesn’t think anyone else in the house would steal them, but he also doesn’t want to take any risks.

Despite not wanting to sleep, he can’t seem to resist the drag of fatigue under his eyes, tugging on his body. The bed suddenly seems very inviting. 

He’s asleep within a couple minutes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk what the foster system is like in the uk, so i'm taking my own experience with the system in the us and slapping these people into them - tell me if i'm representing anything inaccurately and i'll fix it!  
> thanks for the comments and the kudos!

Phil looks through the bedspreads, looking a lot more engaged than Tommy does, and Wilbur looks out of place with his burgundy sweatshirt and leather jacket. Does everything the guy owns smell the fucking same? He almost puked when he went downstairs to grab a glass of juice and he had to pass by the Pothead’s Cave. It’s gross. 

“You should take a fuckin’ shower,” Tommy says as he passes by, wrinkling his nose.

Wilbur’s fork pauses between his mouth and the plate, the eggs almost falling off in the process. “I’m not the one wearing the same clothes two days in a row.”

Tommy didn’t change out of his clothes from last night, no. He was too tired, and saw no reason. Did he fucking care?  _ Also _ no. He drinks his juice, swallows his ADD meds and then glances at the breakfast Wilbur has - eggs, sausage, and toast, all drowning in  _ hot sauce.  _ Like, literally drowning. Almost floating in the shit. Tommy almost gags.

_ “What the fuck.  _ I get it if you like spicy food, but,  _ Jesus fuck,  _ that’s a lot of hot sauce, man. You need a doctor?”

He almost received a retaliation, before Phil walked into the kitchen, wearing a green robe and slippers. “He speaks!” He says for a greeting, smiling at Tommy and reaching for a mug from the cupboard. “And- Wilbur can’t taste anything. Spice is a feeling, so he likes spicy things. I get freaked out too.” 

Wilbur physically gawks, with food in his mouth, and Tommy grimaces.  _ Manners much?  _ “Hey! Nice to know I’m the fuckin’ freak when Techno’s right down the hall!” He shoves another forkful of barely-egg into his gaping mouth and seems to swallow it all in one.

As if he heard what was being said, Techno himself comes down the stairs and makes a beeline for the coffee machine gurgling on the counter. He doesn’t say anything, still. Not even a ‘good morning.’ When he’s done, he turns, stiff and robotic, to Tommy. It’s the first moment he got a good look at the guy’s face, and his  _ red fucking eyes.  _

He gives a simple nod. Like they’re businessmen or some shit. Tommy replies with his own, an exasperated look written across his face, which sends Techno back up the stairs. The sound of a door closing is quiet, but Tommy knows how to listen.

Phil bobs his teabag in his mug of hot water, like nothing even happened, and Wilbur keeps scarfing down his demon concoction at the table.

Tommy feels very out of place.

After his bizarre morning with this bizarre family, Phil takes him to go shopping, and apparently Wilbur just won’t leave him the  _ fuck alone,  _ so a party of three went intsead of two, and now he’s here. Standing awkwardly in the Asda, with grunge-poser Pothead and Phil. What a trio, huh?

He didn’t even know what the importance of a bedspread was until now- how was he supposed to pick one? He was fine with the one that was already in the room, the color didn’t make a difference to him, but Phil was persistent. 

A flash of red caught his eye. Upon closer inspection, it was a red set of bedding with black and gray stripes. Tommy picks it up and shrugs. “I like this one, I guess. I like red.” Phil acted like he was all cool and shit, but he couldn’t ignore the little smile that he saw growing on the man’s face. 

What kind of person gets so fucking happy over  _ kids? _

Tommy’s not a religious person, but he thanked whatever god was out there that Wilbur barely said a word on the shopping trip. He doesn’t think he can handle anymore banter before he fucking snaps. Or before the other will. He doesn’t know which outcome would be worse than the other.

He immediately shuts himself back into the room Phil let him stay in, and he knows that the other kids are gonna think he’s fucking edgy or some shit, but it’s been a long time since he got some for himself. The silence is welcomed, even though he is loud by nurture (if nurture is being-ignored-unless-you-cause-problems, then, yeah. Nurture. Being loud sucks, but he can't afford to be anything else). He takes his time with the sheets and the comforter, making sure the bed’s at least perfect in the barren room - he still hasn’t unpacked, but he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t even want decorations. It’s not like they’ll be up for long, anyway.

He folds the old bedspread set as best he can (why the fuck was a fitted sheet so fucking hard to wrangle up into the tight little squares that the other sheets could become?) and makes the mistake of bringing them downstairs right before dinner. The kitchen light is on and it smells like ramen, and Wilbur’s behind the stove- which wouldn’t be the choice Tommy would make, because the man can’t fucking  _ taste anything. _

Pothead (Tommy decides it’s the name that will stick, he doesn’t have the energy to come up with anything else, and he doesn’t call people by their actual names unless they respect him) faces him, making a face at the sheets in his arms. “The fuck you got those for?”

Tommy blanches. “I don’t know where to fucking put them, idiot. Why are you cooking? You can’t taste shit.”

Wilbur’s face turns sour, and he turns back to the pan of what looks like noodles and vegetables with some sort of sauce. It looks good, surprisingly. “Just because my tastebuds are defective doesn’t mean I don’t know how to cook, big man. I can still smell when something’s burning.”

Techno, who was sitting at the dining room table behind his laptop, and who Tommy didn’t even notice, clears his throat. “Yeah. You still make everything unbearably spicy, though.” And those are the first words he hears from Pinkie. 

“You don’t even eat what I make anyway-”

“Learn about moderation and maybe I will.”

“-I don’t even see why you’re complaining, you eat your own shit anyway.” Tommy decides to put the old sheets on the living room couch, and sits himself at the other end of the table that Techno’s sitting at. Wilbur continues to throw the noodles and veggies around in the sauce, and he looks like he knows what he’s doing. 

Techno looks up from the computer, taking his glasses off - was that a fucking  _ scar  _ across his nose?  _ Badass -  _ “Wil, there are specific foods I need to eat with my supplements, none of which can be your overly-spicy hellscape of ramen, or tacos, or  _ eggs,  _ even.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Pothead’s voice gets soft, only by a bit; any other person would’ve missed it, but Tommy’s good at listening. “I was joking, Tech. I’m sorry.”

He watches as Techno slips the glasses back on his face and turns back to his glowing laptop. “So,” he drawls, voice dull and bored. “How are you liking it here, Tommy?”

_ At least he didn’t open with a fucking jab at his behavior, like asshat over there- _

Tommy shrugs. “It’s fine.” 

And like a second skin, he reverts back to his passive ways. 

“Are you interested in video games?”

Techno was making that harder, somehow.

“Never really got the chance to be too invested in ‘em,” he says, the nonchalance easy to slap on his face, and it certainly helps that he didn’t lie - he never got chances with technology when he was a kid, and the older he got, the more problematic he became. 

He starts wondering if his plan of escape would work, or if Wilbur would just be standing outside his window like a creep at that point.

In the silence that followed, Pothead shoots a look at Pinkie, who doesn’t look away from his screen. “That’s too bad. Maybe Phil will let you use his gaming room.”

Wilbur clicks off the heat on the stove. Tommy blinks. “A…  _ gaming room?” _

He doesn’t get a response, because that’s when Phil opens the door, and Wilbur start’s shouting at him to  _ get the gremlins out of the kitchen, Phil, this is my domain and they are tainting it with their foul energies! _ Tommy tries to slip himself out as unnoticeably as possible, but once the laughing and the yelling dies down, he’s caught.

“Tommy! It’s nice to see you out here,” Phil says, too cheerful,  _ too suspicious.  _ “I was wondering if you wanted to eat with us tonight? You can take a plate to your room, if you want, but we all usually sit together and you’re welcome to do the same!”

From behind him, Wilbur halts, with that same cold stare from the day before,  _ if you say the wrong thing I will make sure your life is a living hell,  _ and  _ you’re on thin ice,  _ and  _ this is the last time.  _

_ This is the last time, and then you’re out.  _

Tommy convinces himself to smile, even if it really does look forced, and even if it’s small, but at least he’s trying, right? “I guess, yeah. I can… sit with you guys.” And it feels wrong, it feels weird and cultish, because the last family he’d been with that did the same thing was a fucking cult too and no one believed him because  _ he was just a kid.  _ But he’s not. And it was a fucking cult. And he doesn’t want to be wrapped up in that shit again.

Phil smiles, and it would be friendly if Tommy wasn’t so fucking paranoid. “Great! You can take a seat wherever, we can adjust.”

_ But it's not paranoia if they’re really out to get you. _

The next little  _ thing  _ that happens isn’t even ten minutes later - the plates are ready, Tommy took his own (masking the unsure, insecure little boy that didn’t know if he even  _ had a plate  _ with the same careless, loud demeanor he always put on to hide him) and sat down in the same seat he had been in when he first came in, which was apparently - you guessed it - Wilbur Pothead Watson’s seat, himself.

“What the fuck.”

Phil raises an eyebrow. “Language, Wil.”

_ “What the fuck.  _ He’s in my  _ seat!”  _ And it’s the front seat all over again, Tommy doesn’t want to be here, and he’s trapped between Wilbur and the chair Wilbur wants. “He got the front seat,” case in point, “but can I at least sit in the chair that I’ve been sitting in for the past five years, Phil?”

At that, Tommy feels a bit guilty. 

_ Ruins peoples lives, comes in and destroys their homes and takes what he wants, a monster in their wake. Leaving carnage and destruction.  _

_ (This is the last time, and then you’re out.) _

The panic starts to well up in his chest, and his hands start shaking. He keeps them below the table so no one notices. 

“Wilbur, there’s a free chair right there,” Phil says, sounding a bit strained, like he’s about to get real pissed off at any moment. Tommy’s instincts are shouting at him to  _ get out of there,  _ but he can’t move. He can’t waste this opportunity. 

_ Push a little harder, a little firmer, a little more. _

Wilbur almost throws his bowl and fork on the table, but doesn’t sit. “I’m not gonna fucking sit down in this chair, it’s not  _ my  _ chair,  _ that’s  _ my chair.” He shoots an angry point at Tommy, with the same smoldering glare that he wears himself - and for a second, he almost lets the panic reach his eyes. He almost loses control. 

Phil grits his teeth, and Techno straightens his glasses passively. “Wilbur, there’s literally no difference between these chairs,  _ please  _ sit down.”

_ Humans get so irrationally angry at their routines being broken. _

_ Of what they can’t control. _

_ Exploit that. You’ll make yourself a force to be reckoned with. _

Wilbur finally breaks, taking his food and sending a withering, sad look to Tommy, retreating to his room. He slams the door, something that shakes the entire house. Phil clears his face with his hand, takes a few seconds to breathe. He offers an apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry about that, Tommy. Wil - he’s going through something rough. I think that set him off a bit.” Techno doesn’t say anything, acting like the table is suddenly very interesting at the moment. 

Tommy nods, speechless. But inwardly, he smiles - tipping on the edge of a grimace. 

One down, two to go.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> barisax wilbur barisax wilbur

It’s Sunday, Tommy learns - he doesn’t keep track of the days unless he needs to - and Phil asks him if he’s alright to go to school on Monday. He says he doesn’t need to, if he wants more time so himself, but he can’t stay at home by himself.  _ Nice to know he doesn’t trust me,  _ he thinks, staring down at the glass of water. 

He thinks about Wilbur’s glare, what he said,  _ don’t make this harder on Phil.  _ He shouldn’t feel guilty about what happened last night, but he hasn’t come out for breakfast, and Tommy gathers that his absence wasn’t a regular occurrence.

“Sure,” he says, lying. “I can go to school tomorrow.”

He really doesn’t want to go to school,  _ ever.  _ It’s boring, he hates most of it (he’s a history buff at heart, but everything else can go to shit) and the teachers always treat him like he’s not one of the other kids, like he’s  _ different.  _

He doesn’t know how convincing he said it, but Phil grins. “Alright! You’ll have to wake up a bit early - around five or five-thirty. Wilbur has jazz band on Monday and Wednesday mornings, and he and Techno fight over the shower even with the two of them. You can take a shower the night before instead of the mornings, though.”

Tommy figures it would be more annoying to get in Techno and Wilbur’s way in the mornings, so he resolves to  _ not  _ do that. 

He wants to ask Phil about the supposed  _ gaming room,  _ but it would feel out of place in the awkward silence that follows their short conversation, so he doesn’t. 

Wilbur didn’t come out of his room after his hissy fit until the afternoon, looking like a straight-up corpse. His eyes are red-rimmed, like he’d been crying over a  _ fucking chair.  _ As far as Tommy knows, he doesn’t bring the empty ramen bowl to the sink, either. Like a slob. And he doesn’t really say anything, either - he doesn’t say anything, and he sticks to Techno’s side, even if it means going into his room. Tommy thinks he’s a bit dramatic.

He  _ is  _ fucking dramatic. He made a fucking scene for absolutely no reason. 

Tommy moves out of the way, but Wilbur still runs into his shoulder as if it’s gonna offend him. He grumbles something almost inaudible, but it’s somewhere between a “fuck off” and an “excuse me.” He doesn’t smell like weed - actually, he smells like he took a fucking shower, and washed his clothes, which Tommy can thank him for. 

He kinda wants to say sorry, at the very least, but he doesn’t do apologies.

Instead, he takes a bag of chips from the kitchen counter and hides back up into the room Phil lets him stay in. He’s gotten into a habit over the years to take whatever food he can and keep it for the future - he has the new chips, now. He brought a half-empty chip bag, a few candy bars and a dwindling loaf of bread from the group home. It’s not the most he’s had, nor the most healthy, but it fills him up when he can’t or won’t eat dinner, or lunch. 

He stuffs the new addition with the rest in his backpack. Another problem for them to fix - missing food. It’s not like he can help the hoarding, but it’s a bonus that it tends to piss people off. 

It’ll get him out faster.

_ This is the last time, and then you’re out. _

Tommy’s gathered from his experience so far that Phil is the type of foster parent to take problem cases, anyway. Which means this really is his last chance. Which also means it will make his escape harder. That type of parent is the type to not let go. Not even when it reaches its peak and everything starts collapsing - they’ll let go if someone’s life is on the line.

He doesn’t want it to come to that. 

_ He can’t be stuck here for the rest of his life. _

He made a promise to himself, never to let anything get to him. When he was seven and afraid for his life, new to the system, he vowed to that promise, and again when he was ten and saw another kid kill herself in the bathtub, and again when he was twelve and starving and started stealing food just to survive, and every day since the very beginning. He will not give in to the system.

He will not be another sob story. 

So he keeps moving.

He wonders if Wilbur and Techno feel the same way.

Before Tommy goes to sleep, Phil knocks on his door.

“Tommy?”

And he’s not a dick, he lets the man in. Wilbur and Techno are both in the bathroom down the hall, talking in hushed voices about  _ something.  _ He doesn’t like the whispering, the mumbling, but he tries not to let his dislike show on his face too plainly. 

“Yeah?” He cringes - he meant to sound like he didn’t care, but it came off as snappish.

Phil doesn’t comment on it, he just hands Tommy a box, a box with a phone printed on the lid, and he can’t believe his fucking eyes. “I figured you didn’t have a phone, since your social worker didn’t mention a number, so I got you one today. We can look at cases for it at some point, too. Do you think you need any help with setting it up, or…?

He trails off, waiting for a response, but Tommy is left half-speechless.  _ A phone. He has a phone.  _ It’s almost like he’s a normal fucking kid for once. He doesn’t mean to be rude in that moment, but he completely ignores Phil’s half-question to open the box and check it out. The phone -  _ a phone -  _ is sleek and thin, the back is red, and at that detail he’s oddly touched.  _ I like red,  _ he said, the day before, and Phil actually listened.

He pretends not to notice the fleeting smile on the man’s face. “Oh, uh- no, I don’t need help, thanks, I guess,” he says, shrugging, but on the inside he’s screaming, crying, and he thinks Phil can see he’s barely holding on to that carefully composed calm that he has.

He smiles, again. “Alright. Well- call if you need anything. Literally, now. Our numbers are on the bottom of the box. And, uh… I’ll leave you to it. Goodnight, Tommy.”

Tommy backs away, and looks up from his-  _ his phone.  _ “‘Night, Phil.”

And he thinks that this might be progress.

(In which direction he doesn’t know - the outcome that he wants, or the one that he needs, he doesn’t know.)

Nothing is like waking up at five in the morning, he decides. Absolutely nothing. The alarm from his phone -  _ his phone,  _ he can’t stop marvelling at that realization - keeps blaring, and Tommy doesn’t even realize it’s been thirty minutes before someone shoves open his door. Suddenly very, very awake, he sits up and glares at Wilbur.

“Turn your  _ fucking  _ alarm off,” he grumbles, still in his pajamas. He looks like a proper stick figure, wearing a shirt that’s two sizes too big, and flannel pants that pool around his feet. The bedhead makes him look like a tree. 

Tommy slaps the screen to turn the offending noise off. “You look like a fucking bush, shithead. At least brush your hair before I have to see it.”

Wilbur snickers and turns away. “Get dressed, gremlin. We leave in an hour.”

Tommy  _ really isn’t ready for school.  _ Waking up at this fucking horrendous time makes it  _ so much worse,  _ he wasn’t even sure it was possible. He feels like his legs are being dragged down into the ground - or maybe that’s just the low blood sugar. Sleeping on his feet seems like a probability.

Getting a hold of the shower was tough. With the fatigue and the usual frustration that comes with it, everyone in the house was on edge. Tommy attempted to shut himself into the bathroom the second in was free, skating past Wilbur walking down the hall, throwing his change of clothes on the counter, and turning around to the door to see Techno looming over him, staring with a vengeance. He decides that getting strangled is a lot worse than spending a few more minutes without a shower.

It’s been a moment since he’s taken some sort of bath, and he lingers in the spray for a few seconds longer than he intended to. He already ate breakfast in his wait, and had everything he needed for the school day (Phil had been adamant on extra folders and notebooks, when Tommy knew he wouldn’t be using them anyway - taking notes is overrated. Neglecting to do so isn’t the only reason he’s failed all his classes in the past.)

Oddly enough, when he’s dressed and ready to go, he’s the only one out of the kids that is. Techno was rushing to eat his food (which Tommy gathers as important, he’d just go without, but he’s keyed the need for some kind of supplement in his memory.) and Phil was nagging at Wilbur to hurry up. Pothead was complaining about carrying his instruments in the morning - a guitar, presumably for jazz band, and a large saxophone for concert band. (He knows his stuff; one of the more strict and high-strung families he stayed with forced him into being a percussionist. Admittedly, the music was a distraction from everything else going on. His next home couldn’t afford it all, and he just moved on.)

Somehow they all went to pack themselves into the car at the right time, half-past six in the morning. Wilbur stuffs his instruments in the trunk and gets to sit in the front. It’s strange to see two six-feet-tall teens in the back seat, and it’s uncomfortable to  _ be  _ those six-feet-tall teens. 

The drive to the school would’ve been quiet, had it not been for Wilbur’s rambling with Techno, and Phil’s voice chiming in every few seconds. Tommy just looks down at his hands and wishes for the day to be over already. So far, it was both long and short, dragging him along and moving a thousand miles a minute. It doesn’t seem like it took too much time to reach the building, but he’s had enough of Wilbur’s voice for the entire week.

They all pool out of the car as soon as it stops. Wilbur’s at the trunk struggling with his shit. Phil stops Techno as he gets out; “Can you stop by the office to get Tommy his schedule and show him around the school?” Pinkie nods and gives a reserved smile.

And it’s officially Tommy’s first day.


End file.
